Joining memories - PART 1

It was a fine morning of 25th Feb’08 when I reached Bhopal Jn. by Bhopal express. The journey was quite comfortable because of 2nd AC fare provided by the company. It was my first visit not only to Bhopal but MP also. I took an auto for Jubilee Gate as told by Saurabh Sharma (HTE), Saurabh Sharma is a 2006 pass out of Engg. College Kota and his classmate Saurabh Jain was my Colleague in NBC.

While dropping me at Jubilee Gate, the Autowala asked me," Sir, interview hai kya?”

“nahi, joining ke liye aaya hun, main select ho chuka hun”

“kya sahab, kismat khul gayi aapki to. BHEL mein aa gaye ho to bas ab kuchh nahi chahiye, ……..80 loonga sahab BHEL mein selection hua hai”

And I happily gave him 80 rupees in place of 70, which I managed to agree upon after a long bargain.

I was at Jubilee Gate at 8:00 AM. The first one to meet me was Praveen. And then Afaque, Iqbal, Somi, Animesh etc. Praveen was directly coming from Kanpur and having his luggage with him, while these people had arrived 2 days earlier and already settled in hostel. Luggage was really a headache for us and the journey from Jubilee Gate to Prerna Bhawan appeared to be never ending.

And finally we reached our destination – Prerna Bhawan. I was sitting with Praveen and waiting my turn. We were given Candies by HR staff as a welcome note (may be a funny thing on part of HR but I liked it). The process had already started and after some verification of documents they were sending us for medical examination to Kasturba in groups. And finally our turn also came, we requested for hostel so that we could be free of the luggage but Mr. Malviya refused flatly saying it was not their work and hostel would be allotted by HRD after joining. So we left with no option but to carry our luggage to Kasturba. Not much was done there till it was lunch and we left for hostel with the guys already settled there.

At first sight the hostel was not impressive, our college hostel rooms were much better than this. (Now I love this place and will not leave it until thrown out by HRD ….. as our seniors did). Afaque provided me temporary shelter and after lunch I got my own room allotted by Mr. Bharani, here we were provided with a welcome kit (no need to describe what was in it…).

After lunch it was again time for Kasturba. It was again a rigorous medical session but a lot of tests were left for the next day (26th Feb). Finally we returned to hostel, everybody was anxious because the job offer was not final until declared medically fit by the medical officer of Kasturba.

The second day was nothing different but most of us got medical certificates. The best thing with our batch was that nobody was found medically unfit. Now our provisional job offers were final offers. Everybody was relieved and relaxed after a two day mission to Kasturba. That evening everybody was busy telling their parents & loved one’s that they had finally crossed the last hurdle.

It was the third day (27th Feb) and we were at Prerna Bhawan again. Since our medical certificates were issued on 26th, our joining date was recorded as 26th Feb 2008. While doing these formalities I was sitting with Ashutosh. He was looking smart as always and I left no chance to get acquainted with him. All these formalities took some time but well before lunch we were sent to HRDC. So we finally joined BHEL with a sense of pride, accomplishment & excitement.